Cannabis oil ‘cure’ denied to Portslade woman with terminal cancer

A terminally-ill woman dying from cancer says she has been denied the right to find a potential cure because she cannot get hold of illegal cannabis oil.

Sheila O’Brien, 50, of Portslade, was initially diagnosed with breast cancer in 2004.

Despite bouts of chemotherapy, the cancer came back in 2013 and spread to her lungs and bones.

Now she wants to ingest cannabis oil because she believes it could rid her body of tumours – but says she has been denied the right to “save my own life” because of “backward laws and government policy”.

Ms O’Brien said: “I have terminal cancer and was told there was no cure.

“I might have believed that had I not read an article on cannabis oil. I started to research it and to my amazement, I discovered it had cured many of thousands of people.

“But the problem for people like me is it’s illegal. It’s illegal for me to try to save my own life. I am denied that right. How can that be right and moral, to deny my chance to live? Where are my human rights?

“The government argument is there is no medical evidence – but there is evidence from thousands of people who have taken it and who have been cured.

“We have backward laws and government policy influenced by big pharmaceutical companies.”

Ms O’Brien is the latest in a string of people in Sussex and across the country who want to or are using cannabis to alleviate medical conditions.

Sussex man Clark French, the founder of national medicinal cannabis campaign group United Patients Alliance, has previously told The Argus he relies on cannabis to relieve his crippling symptoms of multiple sclerosis.

Last week Norman Baker, MP for Lewes, described the country’s current drugs policy on medicinal cannabis as “inhumane”.